The Worst Idea Georgetown’s Ever Had: Wild card, bitches!

As always, Vox readers came through with some fantastic submissions. (And we learned that you’re a terribly cynical bunch!) You’ll find our favorites below, with a little bit of background info added to help you along.

Its hushed halls now home to the president’s bureaucracy and a handful of exclusive administrator offices, Healy Hall was once the center of student life on campus, with the student-run Pub serving as its drunken core. The Pub was a “sticky, smelly, sweaty, time-of-your-life,” one former manager said—a place where you could get trashed any night of the week you pleased on 50-cent beer in the relative safety of an on-campus establishment.

Occasionally, you might have spotted the bar’s faculty adviser, then Dean of Students John DeGioia, imbibing at the counter. It won praise year after year as the best college bar in America, but slowly went bankrupt in the late 1980s after a new alcohol policy forced its student managers to host a dry night once a week. Although the Pub was reborn in the newly-completed Leavey Center, Vice President of Student Affairs James A. Donahue closed the bar for good during the 1994-1995 academic year.

In 1993, Georgetown loaned $5.5 million to Mount Vernon College, an all-girls school. MVC posted its 24-acre campus, located on Foxhall Road, as collateral for the loan; Georgetown planned to use the campus as a center for women’s issues if MVC went under. (In May 1993, President Leo J. O’Donovan even told the Washington Post, “We are determined to ensure that Mount Vernon’s traditional commitment to the education of women will continue as part of Georgetown.”) Three years later, GWU swooped in, paid off the loan, and took over the campus.

The former men’s basketball coach and Georgetown alum (MSB ’57, LAW ’82) took over after John Thompson Jr. resigned in 1999. Although he recruited some of Georgetown’s all-time best, including Michael Sweetney, Roy Hibbert, and Jeff Green, Esherick’s squads perennially disappointed fans. (Under his tenure, the Hoyas made it to a single NCAA tournament, where they were bounced by Maryland’s 2001 Final Four team.) After the 2003 season, student and alumni protests led Jack DeGioia to fire Esherick. (Days earlier, he proclaimed, “I ain’t going anywhere. I may be here for another 30 years.”) Once, he also ranted about referees!

Georgetown often touts Patrick Healy’s African-American heritage, but it also ignores the University’s checkered, slave-owning past. In 1838, President Thomas F. Mulledy, S.J. sold 64 slaves to a plantation in Louisiana for $27,057. Why? Because the Jesuits of Maryland believed that selling the slaves would raise more money than keeping them on plantations in the area.

It doesn’t take more than a mention of the University’s clumsy Access to Benefits policy or club funding structure to inspire a torrent of ad hominem attacks on the gate keepers of students’ money. Labyrinthine, cumbersome, nonsensical—just pick your adjective.

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